Chapter 81
Chapter 81
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 81
Chapter Title: Episode 27. Apocalypse, The Masquerade Where Death Dances (9)
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In the 6th regression, after conquering the demon world. And seizing power that surpassed human limits. Yoo Ji-tae had felt an odd sense of awkwardness when looking at all the humans in the world.
They walked awkwardly. Breathed awkwardly. The entire system of living from birth to death felt utterly sloppy.
Everything in the world didn't know how to walk properly or breathe efficiently. It was like crudely made dolls clumsily imitating human movements. Every living creature navigating the world was equally crude.
The world changed overnight.
It took a little time to realize that he had changed.
The world was the same. People weren't clumsy at all.
What had changed was Yoo Ji-tae.
Ku-gu-gu-gu...
The lock on the black iron chains that didn't reflect light snapped open. From within his body, the Level 5 artifact "Hell's Shackles", which had constricted his heart, was released.
Ku-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu...
Wide, shocked red eyes appeared. Noah was aghast.
What Yoo Ji-tae had suppressed in his embrace was killing intent.
The will to destroy and kill.
The world Noah had reconstructed with his imagination began to shake. Just from releasing the seal he'd kept suppressed.
The ground started to flip over. The sky crumbled down, and the "Phairan's Divine Spear" flying toward Yoo Ji-tae began to shatter into massive fragments.
In the landscape of the entire world collapsing.
Yoo Ji-tae simply stood there, gazing up at the sky.
His senses slowly returned.
Before and after, left and right, up and down, near and far—spatial concepts began to make sense as they originally did.
And the direction of his "Sixth Sense" shifted from the 'world' to 'himself'.
Once that happened, the framework of the world Noah had altered could no longer affect Yoo Ji-tae at all.
His senses sharpened even further. Yoo Ji-tae began to charge forward. As he lowered his stance, the ground beneath him crumbled, flinging his body upward.
The next moment, Yoo Ji-tae kicked off the earth and rocketed toward the 'Phairan's Divine Spear'.
The massive thorn, now half-shattered and grotesquely exposing its innards.
Red lightning targeted his body, lashing out wildly from all directions. It was lightning that bound him, making evasion impossible.
He had no intention of dodging. Yoo Ji-tae flew straight toward Phairan's Divine Spear.
Like a meteor crashing into impact.
The massive thorn shattered, scattering into tens of thousands of car-sized fragments.
Unprecedented helplessness.
Before the distorting world, Noah's voice rang out across it.
"Impossible――."
The crumbling world. The collapse of imagination. Amid the gaps, gray subspaces emerged—voids Noah's imagination couldn't fill.
"How can this be――."
"How dare a mere mortal――!!"
Right after those words, Noah's physical form vanished.
Understanding that his own world was collapsing, Noah flipped the dream world once more.
When he opened his eyes again, a bizarre world awaited Yoo Ji-tae.
If Earth was a world made on a globe, this was a world constructed inside one. Looking closely, the opposite side of the continent was visible beyond the sky. In the center of the world, a light source shone in place of the sun.
However, the environment was utterly unlike Earth. Red lava flowed between cracks in the ground. Scorching hot air pressed in. Every mountain was an active volcano, and volcanic ash and pumice rained down like snow everywhere.
This was probably some otherworld where space itself didn't exist.
"Kill him――!"
At Noah's command, a massive monster began to emerge from the sun.
A blazing body. Lava flowing along its flesh. Five heads of different species: resembling human, horse, goat, lion, and eagle.
It was like a spirit. Or a chimera.
"......"
No issue.
Yoo Ji-tae flew in and began dismantling the monster.
Noah had now become one with the dream world. To kill him, they had to wait for the point when his imagination ran dry.
Looking closely, the 'background' was sloppy. Like a photo taken with a low-resolution camera. Shapes were blurred, shadows from light were crude.
In contrast, the monster before him was vividly detailed in every way. So Yoo Ji-tae aimed to shatter it.
There was no reason to struggle like in the 5th regression. He was different now from back then.
"You think I'll crumble like this――?"
The world crumbled once more.
In a world where patches of gray voids were revealing themselves here and there.
Noah kept pouring out his imagination.
"How can a mere mortal do this――?"
A tower was plummeting from the sky.
The tower was barely staying upright, borne on the back of an ancient monster. This was the world of the ancient great beast "Kaklua".
Yoo Ji-tae killed Kaklua and toppled the tower.
"What mad being granted you such power――!"
An endless sea of poison stretched out. At its bottom lived a massive serpent called "Vaisaque", a monster that absorbed the power of whatever it devoured. It started small but eventually swallowed all foes in the sea. Now, the poison flowing from its body filled the ocean.
Yoo Ji-tae split Vaisaque's head and killed it.
"How can such providence exist on my timeline――!"
A night sky blanketed entirely in white with shooting stars.
Shuuu―. Kwaaaang―!
Yellow meteors bloomed from the heavens, crashing down and pulverizing the surface.
This was the otherworld where Noah was born and raised. A world that had also met its end. Because of that, a more intricate and detailed apocalypse unfolded before Yoo Ji-tae than any other. But with no target to destroy, he calmly awaited the end.
It resembled landscapes he'd seen countless times in life. He felt nothing special.
There, Yoo Ji-tae stayed still for days.
The apocalypse didn't happen overnight. The meteors ravaging the world was brief, but the surface bursting from the shock, lava flowing out, and mana surging like a tsunami to engulf everything—that required waiting on a planetary timescale, not human.
Weeks passed that way.
Then months.
Yoo Ji-tae didn't die.
He took no damage whatsoever.
That nameless otherworld met its end, leaving him alone.
Noah at the time seemed to have been sucked into a dimensional rift before the world fully collapsed.
As the moment he couldn't remember arrived, the world instantly turned to ash-gray and scattered.
"Kraaaaaah――!!"
Noah finally revealed himself, screaming in rage. He'd lost most of his imagination. Yoo Ji-tae could tell. Far grander things than in previous regressions had emerged because of it.
"Is it over?"
Yoo Ji-tae walked through the gray space toward him.
There was no young, dignified human there anymore.
Snow-white, patchy thinning hair. A face full of wrinkles.
Noah, aged in an instant, knelt and looked up at Yoo Ji-tae.
"If you knew it was hopeless, why not just end it properly."
Their first encounter had been in the 4th regression.
Back then, he couldn't win and fled.
"All of you so damn pathetic."
Then the 5th. Yoo Ji-tae fought for years in Noah's dream, and once imagination ran out, he shattered the entire Eurasian continent to drive Noah out of the rift.
It took hundreds of days again.
"Every last one of you. Always such a hassle."
In the 6th, Yoo Ji-tae had dominated Earth in terror from the start. The demonkin cowered in corners, biding their time. So about 20 years later, when the 'Second Great War' broke out, he felt exhaustion multiplied manyfold.
Kill any that appeared, they'd hide.
The hidden ones laid eggs, waiting for their era.
So killing required the right time and place.
Like right now.
"Die already."
It was when Yoo Ji-tae drew "Formless Sword (SS)".
"Kuhk. Krugh..."
The aged Noah began trembling violently.
Why suddenly? Curious, but no reason to wait. He thrust the sword.
Then, a white hand emerged from behind Noah's nape, grabbing Yoo Ji-tae's Formless Sword.
At some point. A girl cloaked in pure white light stood behind Noah.
No presence. No trace. No sign at all.
Soon, the gray world began changing again.
But this time, no concrete world emerged. Like being tossed into space, no light or objects existed. A world where the beginning and end of space were unknowable.
There, the glowing white girl spoke.
"......"
First time facing her.
This abyss wasn't accessible from Earth's dimension.
But Yoo Ji-tae knew.
Sometimes as an evil dragon. Sometimes as a massive flying object blotting the sky. Sometimes like this, as a girl. She had appeared.
Lord of lords.
Creator of the deepest abyss.
"Abyss's 3rd Monarch. Ni-ar-la."
That divine being had revealed herself before Yoo Ji-tae.
"......"
Yoo Ji-tae gripped the hand holding the Formless Sword tighter. But the sword didn't budge an inch from the girl's hand.
It was strange. In other regressions, the 3rd Monarch had never appeared, not even once, no matter how thoroughly Noah was beaten.
[Do you know me?]
A clear, transparent voice. An atmosphere that was somehow sacred and solemn.
Yoo Ji-tae dispersed the killing intent at his fingertips.
"This is a surprise... I knew you took interest in contractors, but."
That interest was something bizarre beyond measure.
The girl smiled brightly at Yoo Ji-tae's words.
[Yes. Since this child wouldn't die, I decided to appear here.]
The 3rd Monarch's palace existed in an extremely distant place, even within the deep abyss.
It wasn't connected to Earth. Just as Yoo Ji-tae couldn't go to Ascalifa. For even an Abyss Monarch to send their will directly like this meant considerable effort.
"Is that your business? Asking me to spare Noah?"
The girl shook her head. Light scattered like powder.
[If it were just that, I wouldn't have come. I came here to see you, twisted and distorted being.]
"What business do you have with me."
[We survey many dimensions. There are so many dimensions. Truly countless created beings walking their mortal lives. But from deep beneath that profound earth, you began drawing all eyes.]
Not surprising.
It hadn't been long since he'd smashed the palace of the 7th Monarch, Rakshata.
The abyss must be in uproar. Not like humans chattering on TV, but surely many Monarchs now had their eyes on Yoo Ji-tae.
[Don't kill this child.]
Yoo Ji-tae's brow twitched.
[You shouldn't be in this world. Your slightest movements will start ruining this world, this dimension.]
[In the distant future, your existence will surely be a calamity.]
[However... I know you're an uncontrollable being. So I wish to observe through this child. Waiting for the moment you leave this world—that alone is our sole pleasure.]
Yoo Ji-tae didn't respond.
[If so, I'll give you a gift.]
That was when it happened.
The Apocalyptic Clock began sending Yoo Ji-tae a message.
A space whose name couldn't be known?
Was it representing Noah's dream world?
Yoo Ji-tae looked up at the altered black world.
Looking closely. This place had two black spaces adjoining each other.
Like where sea meets sky. Beyond the space, at a certain boundary, black things endlessly rippled, influencing each other.
He'd thought it an abstract space since no end was visible.
Yoo Ji-tae's assumption was wrong. Tracing the surface where the two darknesses met, the ripples continued to an unimaginably distant point.
This was a real, existing space.
Yoo Ji-tae's eyes widened.
Providence Horizon? Here?
[How is it?]
The girl confidently placed hands on hips and puffed out her chest. A human-like pose.
Providence Horizon...
If this was modeled after a real existing space.
Then Yoo Ji-tae wouldn't need to collect malice anymore.
He could steer the 7th regression a bit more stably.
[The gift is still a secret. But it's definitely something helpful to you.]
It was tempting, for sure.
The fact that 'Ni-ar-la' had bothered to depict this space in the dream suggested she was giving something related to the Providence Horizon.
[Anyway, you can't kill Noah. This poor child has every reason to live. Your violence will just gradually crumble his mind.]
But the girl's words failed to sway him.
"No."
[...Huh?]
The atmosphere flipped.
Killing intent gathered in Yoo Ji-tae's gaze.
The activation of the power was utterly mundane. The handling of killing intent was relaxed. No prelude or presence, just like when the Monarch emerged from Noah's body.
The form of killing intent that manifested was like the Formless Sword.
But the quality contained within was different.
The Monarch looked at Yoo Ji-tae. There was no change in him. His expression remained as impassive as before. His body didn't move.
Yet suddenly, that gaze began crushing down heavily on her astral form.
Sound vanished from the black subspace. As if someone had forcibly muted it. Then Noah's dying heartbeat rang loud. And Yoo Ji-tae's heartbeat, slightly louder, along with his breathing, began resounding through the world as an ominous vibration.
The smile vanished from the girl's face. She frowned at Yoo Ji-tae.
[You... what do you think you're doing...?]
"......"
Amusingly.
Even this transcendent being didn't know.
What had happened to Yoo Ji-tae after the 5th regression ended.
Now, he could kill Noah.
No need for some shadowy someone's 'help'.
This was the power he'd used in the 6th regression to behead a demon world's archduke.
―.
The sword slashed horizontally, as if cleaving the world.
The girl's head fell.